The ARL Daily Intelligence is the trusted source of news and analysis for library leaders and advocates.

Released Monday through Thursday, the ARL Daily Intelligence is curated by Gary D. Price, co-founder and editor of Library Journal’s infoDOCKET, and edited and produced by Kaylyn Groves, ARL’s director of Member Communications.

You may subscribe to the email of ARL Daily Intelligence and the ARL Weekly News Roundup, released on Fridays. Both the ARL Daily Intelligence and ARL Weekly News Roundup are available on LinkedIn as well. Thank you for subscribing, reading, and sharing!

Do you work for an ARL member library and have news you want us to share in our Daily Intelligence and Weekly News Roundup? Please email your news link(s) to daily@arl.org.

Jump to:

• Monday, September 14
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries

Monday, September 14

Top o’ the Day

A Possible Fix for Higher-Ed Skepticism? Speedier Bachelor’s Degrees
(Open Campus)

AI Agents Evolve Their Own Languages
(Schmidt Sciences)

AI Is Remaking the Workforce Faster Than Universities Can Decide How—or Whether—to Teach It
(Fortune)
See also: More Than 60 Percent of Harvard Faculty Say AI Harms Their Courses (The Harvard Crimson)

ARL’s AI-Enabled Analysis Pipeline Supports Sensemaking at Scale
(ARL: Association of Research Libraries)

Bookstores Sound Alarm Over Trump’s Anti-Terrorism Memo
(PW: Publishers Weekly)

Inside “Project Lily”: The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT Chats
(404 Media)

Microsoft Drafts Code of Conduct to Keep Its AI Under Human Control
(Reuters)
See also:

• Humanist AI Code of Conduct (Microsoft AI)
• Is AI Really Getting Out of Control? (Chatham House)

National Science Foundation (NSF) Memo Implementing Trump’s “Golden Age” of Science Unsettles Researchers
(Science)

Public Knowledge: Why “Open” Matters with Christopher Marcum (podcast)
(Educating to Be Human Podcast)

UK Universities Are on the Brink—What Is Their Greatest Source of Stress?
(Nature)

ARL Member Libraries

A Good Place to Stay for 33 Years: Andy Corrigan Retires, Becoming Tulane Libraries’ Vice Dean of Libraries Emeritus
(Tulane University Libraries)

College & Research Libraries (September 2026)
 ARL member library authors 

• Discovering Fat Studies Literature: A Bibliometric Analysis (University of Illinois Chicago Library)
• Evolving Trends: A Bibliometric Analysis of Academic Librarians’ Publications at Twelve AAU Member Universities (Purdue University Libraries)
• Investigating International Academic Librarian Attitudes on Copyright Reform in Support of Open Access (UBC Library, UBC: The University of British Columbia)
• Investing in the Future of International Studies Librarianship: Building an Internship Program (University of Michigan Library)

From “Poisonous Dust” to New Yorkers Coming Together: A Preview of the Largest 9/11 Video Archive (video)
(NYPL: New York Public Library via Sky News)

Going Long on Badger History
(University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries)

It Always Comes Back to Access: A Conversation with Hilary Seo
(Iowa State University Library via ARL)

New Kits at Woodward Library Help UBC Students Get Hands-On with Climate Science
(UBC Library, UBC: The University of British Columbia)
Also from UBC: UBC Open Collections Surpasses 300,000 Digital Objects

Still Adding Value? Assessing the Impact of a Faculty Bibliography
(UNLV University Libraries, UNLV: University of Nevada, Las Vegas via JLSC: Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication)
 ARL member library authors 

The Freedman Center for Digital Scholarship: 20 Years of Innovation
(Case Western Reserve University Kelvin Smith Library)

UCR Library Research and Technology Division Helps Collaborative Intelligence Systems Lab (CISL) Lab Bring Autonomous Vehicle Data to Life
(UC Riverside Library)

Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Marks 40 Years of Advancing Biomedical Data Integration
(NLM: US National Library of Medicine)

Curated by Gary D. Price, MLIS
Co-Founder and Editor, Library Journal’s infoDOCKET
Information Industry Analyst
Librarian

http://infoDOCKET.com
@infodocket

About the Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit membership organization of research libraries and archives in major public and private universities, federal government agencies, and large public institutions in Canada and the US. ARL champions research libraries and archives, develops visionary leaders, and shapes policy for the equitable advancement of knowledge.

The post ARL Daily Intelligence (September 14–17) appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

After 23 years at Iowa State University Library, Hilary Seo (18LFP Fellow) retired in summer 2026. Before heading to the great outdoors of Colorado, Hilary spoke with ARL about her beginnings in libraries, equitable access, and what stays the same through every new disruption.

Sam: There’s no better place to start, I suppose, than asking you how you got started in librarianship.

Hilary: Probably like many others—accidentally.

As an undergraduate, I found a job in the library, and I worked circulation and interlibrary loan. It was convenient, it was great, and I enjoyed it. UCLA had a library school at the time, and they would send postcards to all the library student employees, and we were like, you have to go to school for this? I had already planned to go to the University of Wisconsin for anthropology. But once I got there, I started thinking, what am I going to do with a PhD in anthropology?

I was chatting with my sister, and she told me about “book doctors.” It resonated with me, because, in anthropology and archaeology, I started wondering: what do you do with all these artifacts? Who takes care of them? How do you manage all of this?

So, I looked into the library program at Wisconsin. I switched from the Anthropology Department into the Library School. I got a job at the State Historical Society in the archives reading room and the paper conservation lab. It started from there, then I pursued preservation.

Sam: What do you consider to be some of the highlights of your career?

Hilary: So months after I started as interim dean, we went into a pandemic, and although I would not say that was a highlight, it’s where my role really started for me. I would say, looking at my time in leadership roles or as dean, my focus has been on student success, including Tech Lending, which blossomed during COVID; creating a child-friendly study room; helping launch Cyclone Support Central, a space in the library that incorporates wellness activities and programming to connect students to resources like counseling, or assistance with cover letters and resumes and finding professional clothing to go to interviews. So, that’s not a traditional library program, but we are that space on campus that gets a lot of foot traffic. It’s our way of connecting with the students and, often, how to find the students who are struggling academically or with outside life.

Sam: What are some of the goals you’ve set that maybe you haven’t reached yet?

Hilary: Oh, there are many. The list keeps growing. I think my final goal was to set a date for my retirement because if I relied on finishing my to-do list, it would never happen—just through opportunities, partnerships, changing landscapes, and student needs. But I had to set an end date. So, the one big thing that I still want to do is a renovation that includes an addition to the north side of the library that would create a new entrance connecting the library to the STEM corridor and giving us other opportunities, including expanding special collections and creating a smaller, more secure footprint for our late nights.

Sam: What advice might you have for those who aspire to leadership within research libraries?

Hilary: I would give the same advice that my mentor gave me, which was in order to have an impact and be heard, it helps to have a seat at the table. And since I came out of such a niche area—preservation—our work impacted almost everything across the library, and others’ decisions impacted what we did.

What I was told, and what I would share with others, is to build a better and broader understanding of the library, not just your niche area. Build those relationships across the library and learn to communicate with others and understand their perspective, not just driving your agenda from your field and your expertise, but really understanding how all these areas work together or need to work together. That would be my advice.

Sam: Good advice. What are your thoughts on the key issues that research libraries will face in the next five years or so? AI?

Hilary: Libraries are constantly changing. It’s partly how we remain relevant. How often have we heard that libraries won’t exist in five years whenever there is some sort of disruptive technology?

You know, and you said it, today it’s AI, but we’re already supporting the needs of our campuses, hopefully enlightening students, fielding questions, and working with faculty, managing the impacts on our collections and our work.

I can’t tell you what the next disruptive technology is going to be, but there’s going to be another. So in a lot of ways, if you just take out the very specific technology or that disruptive something, libraries are constantly responding, and it looks the same over and over and over, even though we’re responding to different threats or opportunities. It always comes back to managing information, instructing users, and equitable access.

We will still be grappling with supporting open, and with AI, I am concerned that the good work that we have done to advance open, publishers will leverage it and drive our costs higher. I think to change that, we must change promotion and tenure traditions on campuses. We have to change the reward system, and that’s a hard thing for libraries to take on. We’re kind of a small voice in it, but a lot of the traditions around promotion and tenure are what are impacting libraries and publishing and peer review and all of that.

Sam: What inspires you about librarianship?

Hilary: I will say that my passion is still in the cultural heritage areas, so preservation, conservation, special collections, archives, making sure that history continues to be documented—people, events, movements—so they’re not forgotten. They’re part of the record that researchers can continue to access and build on. More broadly, I would say, it’s the DNA of libraries: equitable access to information and technology, leveling the playing field for everyone. Making sure our students all have access to whatever it is they need. And for some students who can’t afford to purchase a laptop or subscribe to these AI tools, we can provide the same things and make sure that they have the same capabilities in their coursework, which then gets back to making education more affordable.

Sam: Which areas in librarianship would you encourage young professionals to focus on as they’re entering the field?

Hilary: In the long run, you have to go with what you love, what inspires you, because you’re going to be doing this for a while. You’ve got to find joy in what you do.

I came out of a very niche area. I have talked with undergraduates and graduate students in library programs, and I think I’ve scared some of them away, because in preservation, if you want to find a job and advance, you have to move and follow those opportunities. So understanding that part is important. And to be willing to do that, you really need to love what you do. And this is hard, because their passion area may not be in high demand or align with future opportunities.

Technology will always be an underlying factor in librarianship. I mean, it’s a lot of what drives us. It’s practically a part of every problem or solution, so they must have an understanding of technology, track and develop those skills, and be able to communicate with IT. AI feeds right into that.

I would also say it’s helpful to have a good understanding of business practices, and that aligns with assessment. I think we really need to lean into data-driven decision-making these days.

Sam: Do you have a favorite ARL memory?

Hilary: Oh, it has to be my leadership cohort. What a great group. That was an amazing experience, building those connections and those friendships, and we still hop on our old Slack channel, or we try to meet up and talk during various ARL meetings or other meetings.

Working with the ARL staff, too. Y’all are great, you’re fun, you’re knowledgeable. You keep us on track when we never want to be on track because we just want to keep talking about other things. You make us make decisions and get things done.

Sam: Thank you! It’s a great group. Okay, so what are you looking forward to in your next phase?

Hilary: Oh, gosh, being outdoors and being more active. We built our house in Colorado, and there’s plenty of land for a garden. We’ve already seen elk, a mule deer, and a red fox, on the property all at once one afternoon.

It’s a great area for fly fishing and hiking. And having some time to travel, maybe see some alternative ’80s bands and discover wines and food and new places. That’s a much easier question.

Sam: Pretty exciting. That’s great.

Hilary: Although I’m still trying to figure out what I’m gonna do on my first actual retirement day in Colorado. I won’t have a calendar. I won’t have anyone telling me where I need to be.

Sam: You’re not gonna know what to do with yourself! I think you’ll ease into it pretty quickly, though.

Hilary: I hope so!

The post It Always Comes Back to Access: A Conversation with Hilary Seo appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

The ARL Daily Intelligence is the trusted source of news and analysis for library leaders and advocates.

Released Monday through Thursday, the ARL Daily Intelligence is curated by Gary D. Price, co-founder and editor of Library Journal’s infoDOCKET, and edited and produced by Kaylyn Groves, ARL’s director of Member Communications.

You may subscribe to the email of ARL Daily Intelligence and the ARL Weekly News Roundup, released on Fridays. Both the ARL Daily Intelligence and ARL Weekly News Roundup are available on LinkedIn as well. Thank you for subscribing, reading, and sharing!

Do you work for an ARL member library and have news you want us to share in our Daily Intelligence and Weekly News Roundup? Please email your news link(s) to daily@arl.org.

Jump to:

• • Tuesday, September 8
    • Top o’ the Day
    • ARL Member Libraries
  • Wednesday, September 9
    • Top o’ the Day
    • ARL Member Libraries
    • Higher Ed
  • Thursday, September 10
    • Top o’ the Day
    • ARL Member Libraries
    • Scholars & Scholarship

Tuesday, September 8

Top o’ the Day

AI Slop (preprint)
(SSRN: Social Science Research Network)

CARL at 50: The Founding of a National Voice for Research Libraries
(CARL: Canadian Association of Research Libraries)

CHELSA Joins the CLOCKSS Community
(CLOCKSS)
Also from CLOCKSS: Three Months in: CLOCKSS–LOCKSS Pilots Take Shape

COSSA Releases 2025 Annual Report
(COSSA: Consortium of Social Science Associations)

Enrollment Data Signal More Humanities Degree Declines Ahead
(American Academy of Arts & Sciences)

How Policy Is Reshaping Open Access: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
(Research Consulting)

IHEP and 100+ Organizations Urge US Commerce Department to End Delay of Census Data Release
(IHEP: Institute for Higher Education Policy)

In the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Professors Try to Make Cheating Hard Again
(The Globe and Mail ||| Open version)

OpenAI, New York Times Case Tees Up Key Test of AI Training Under Copyright Law
(Reuters)

PISA 2025: Students’ Reading and Mathematics Performance Declined Sharply Across the OECD
(OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
See also: Americans’ Satisfaction with K–12 Education Hits New Low (Gallup)

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch Steps Down Amid Strife with Trump
(The Wall Street Journal)
See also: Smithsonian news release

ARL Member Libraries

A CNN Journalist Spent Years Reporting on al-Qaeda. Now He’s Handing Over a Massive Archive.
(Georgetown University Library via The Washington Post ||| Open version)

Destroying Books to Build a Mind
(Princeton University Library via The New Yorker ||| Open version)

KU Student-Designed Mural Reflects Community, Belonging in Watson Library
(KU Libraries, KU: The University of Kansas)

Library Makes Nearly 500 First-Hand 9/11 Responder Accounts Available Online
(Library of Congress)

Making 1.47 Million Historical Newspaper Pages Available as High-Quality, Granular Data
(BPL: Boston Public Library and Harvard Law School Library)
See also: Extending Institutional Books with Enriched Text and 22 Million Extracted Images

OSU Libraries Acquires Medieval-Era Manuscripts, Fostering Campuswide Research, Development
(OSU Libraries, OSU: Oklahoma State University)

Physician-Scientist and Informatics Leader Dr. Peter Embí to Helm NIH’s National Library of Medicine
(NLM: US National Library of Medicine)

The Same Mission, Different Tools: Susan Parker Reflects on a Career in Libraries
(UBC Libraries, UBC: The University of British Columbia via ARL: Association of Research Libraries)

UB Libraries’ WBFO Archive Celebrates the Station That Shaped NPR
(UB Libraries, UB: University at Buffalo)

Wednesday, September 9

Top o’ the Day

Clarivate Pulse of the Library 2026 Report Reveals AI Adoption Gaps Across Geographies, Mainland China Advancing Fastest
(Clarivate)

How an AI Math Breakthrough Ignited a Controversy
(Science)

Internet Archive Releases Online Archive (199,000 Articles) of Black Entertainment Television (BET) Journalism No Longer Available on the Live Web
(infoDOCKET)

Majority of Canadian Students Use AI; Educators Sound Alarm: AI Adoption Is Outpacing AI Readiness
(KPMG Canada)

The Public Health Cost of Eliminating Race and Ethnicity Data
(FAS: Federation of American Scientists)

2025 NDSA Staffing Survey Report Now Available
(NDSA: National Digital Stewardship Alliance)

US Justice Department Official Queried a Dozen Journals on “Partisan” Views in 2025
(FYI: Science Policy News, AIP: American Institute of Physics)

Who Needs National Journals? Dissemination Strategies in Canadian Scholarly Communication
(The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science)

ARL Member Libraries

A Data Quality Checklist for Undergraduate Data Stewardship: Development, Implementation, and Evidence from Two Library Courses
(Purdue University, Libraries and School of Information Studies via The Journal of Academic Librarianship)
 ARL member library authors 

A Kind of Autobiography
(University of Michigan Library)

Cataloging the Robert C. Johnson Films
(WashU Libraries, WashU: Washington University in St. Louis)

Innis Library Opens in McLean Centre for Collaborative Discovery
(McMaster University Libraries)

Library of Congress Releases Recordings of Famous National Press Club Speeches
(Library of Congress via The National Press Club)

$1 Million Gift Makes Space for Creativity at York University’s Markham Campus
(York University Libraries)

Project Digitally Recreates a Buried World War I Battlefield
(Virginia Tech University Libraries)

Tiered Community Recommendations for Content Authenticity and Provenance (TCR4CAP) Available for Public Comment
(Library of Congress, New York Public Library, and Smithsonian Libraries and Archives via FADGI: Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative)

Higher Ed

Apprenticeship and Postsecondary Education Are Intertwined: New Evidence on Apprenticeship Pathways in the United States
(Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia)

Students at Civic-Preparedness Campuses Outpace College Peers and US Adults on Civic Skills
(C&S: Institute for Citizens & Scholars)

The State of Post-Secondary Education in Canada, 2026
(Higher Education Strategy Associates)

2027 College Free Speech Rankings: Kirk Murder Adds Another Difficult Topic to Dismal Climate for Student Expression
(FIRE: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)

Thursday, September 10

Top o’ the Day

“Academic Freedom Isn’t Negotiable”: Stand Up for Science Counters Education Department with Own Vision for Higher Ed
(Stand Up for Science via EIN Presswire)

Anthropic Researcher Quits Over “Out-of-Control” AI Fears
(WSJ: The Wall Street Journal)

Call for Papers: Special Issue on Accessibility in Digital Publishing
(JEP: Journal of Electronic Publishing)

Government of Canada Launches National AI Literacy Initiative
(Government of Canada)

How to Build a Sovereign Global Knowledge Commons
(Katina)

Introducing Uncovered: An AUPresses & PBS Books Partnership
(AUPresses: Association of University Presses)
Also from AUPresses: AUPresses Creates Crowdfunding Opportunity to Help Ukrainian Publisher

Jimmy Kimmel Moves Interview with US Senate Candidate from TV to YouTube Due to Federal Communications Commission Threats
(Variety)

OCUL 2025–26 Annual Report Now Available
(OCUL: Ontario Council of University Libraries)

State of the Facts 2026: Public Trust in Information from the US Federal Government Has Declined Since 2024
(AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research)

Supporting Researchers to Disclose AI Use with Confidence
(OUP: Oxford University Press)
See also: Springer Nature Launches Updated AI Policies and Guidance to Support Responsible AI Use (Springer Nature)

2026 Fall Term Pulse Point Survey
(ACE: American Council on Education)

Want to Succeed in an AI World? Study Anthropology
(WSJ: The Wall Street Journal)
Also from WSJ: The Case for Saving Every AI Chat

ARL Member Libraries

American Art and Portrait Gallery Library Receives Significant Collection of New Deal Artist Files
(Smithsonian Libraries and Archives)

Center for Digital Humanities Lands a New Home with the Libraries
(Texas A&M University Libraries)

Leadership at BU Libraries: Kate Donovan Appointed University Librarian
(BU Libraries, BU: Boston University)

Libraries Open Publishing Adds Manifold for Publishing Open Access Monographs
(Penn State University Libraries)

Welcoming Students to the Penn Libraries: An Interview with Brigitte Weinsteiger
(Penn Libraries, Penn: University of Pennsylvania)

Scholars & Scholarship

How Science Gets by with a Little Help from the Beatles: Detecting Cultural Wordplay in Scientific Literature Using Large Language Models
(PLOS One)

New UKRN Reports Highlight Opportunities and Limits of AI-Powered Monitoring of Research Data Sharing
(UKRN: UK Reproducibility Network)

Popular Open-Science Platform to Stop Hosting Data and Code amid Funding Concerns
(Nature)

UKRI Modernizes Grant Assessment for the Age of AI
(UKRI: UK Research and Innovation)

Curated by Gary D. Price, MLIS
Co-Founder and Editor, Library Journal’s infoDOCKET
Information Industry Analyst
Librarian

http://infoDOCKET.com
@infodocket

About the Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit membership organization of research libraries and archives in major public and private universities, federal government agencies, and large public institutions in Canada and the US. ARL champions research libraries and archives, develops visionary leaders, and shapes policy for the equitable advancement of knowledge.

The post ARL Daily Intelligence (September 8–10) appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

Before retirement, Susan Parker (13LFP Fellow, 23President) sat down with ARL to reflect on a career that took her from law firm libraries to nearly a decade leading the library at The University of British Columbia (UBC). Susan shares hard-won lessons on leadership, change, and what has not changed about the mission of libraries at all.

Sam: Can you start by telling me how you got started in librarianship?

Susan: By choosing a different career completely at first, like a lot of librarians do. I went straight into a doctoral program in history after college; my goal was to be a history professor. Before my first year was out, my father passed away unexpectedly, and that changed everything about the family finances. I stopped after completing my master’s in history.

I needed work, and I had friends from college in New York City, so I moved there. That’s where I found my first library job, at a big law firm in downtown Manhattan—a corporate practice with offices in London, Washington, and New York. I worked right across the street from the World Trade Center. I think about that a lot these days.

Before too long, I moved to a second firm in midtown, closer to home. Law firm libraries are high-pressure environments, and they got me thinking about what other kinds of libraries I could work in, because I didn’t want to stay there. I learned a huge amount. This was before fax machines, when the library staff’s job included hiring a courier to sit in the SEC office in DC, wait for a filing, and then fly it up. It sounds like ancient history now. Fascinating work, but I wanted a way back into academia.

My boss at the second firm gave me the best career advice I’ve ever gotten: “Go get a library degree. Don’t hang around here without one.” So I did, at Queens College at night, back when it was still an MLS. Then I started looking for academic library jobs and landed my first one, as a government publications librarian at Tufts.

Sam: It’s interesting how life takes you in those directions.

Susan: It’s a wild ride. I grew up in southwestern Ohio and central Indiana, then moved to New York City. That was a tough transition, so different from where I’d been.

Sam: Looking back over your whole career, what stands out as highlights?

Susan: I’d call those early law-firm years, while I was getting my library credential, a highlight, because they were useful early examples of jobs and bosses I didn’t want, which helped me figure out where I did want to go. Every job should do that to some extent.

My first real highlight, though, was Harvard Law School Library. You never know who you’re going to meet. I spent a semester helping a law student named Barack Obama, who was editor of the Law Review. At the time, Law Review students had keys to the library. Online searching wasn’t good enough yet, so they’d pull books off the shelves and work at a table next to the circulation desk. We got to know him a little, and it was startling later to see where he ended up. He was surrounded by people even then—an amazing personality, even as a student.

From Harvard I went to Cal State Northridge in 1997, to help the library recover from the 1993 earthquake. The library had been one of the hardest-hit parts of campus, and they were still rebuilding. For years my job was reorganizing physical spaces and workflows, and helping people through a really tough stretch. We worked out of FEMA trailers. At one point, literally every FEMA trailer in the country was on our campus. The technical services team operated like a MASH unit: I’d say “you’ll need to move tomorrow morning” and they’d say “we can move today.” One Labor Day weekend, the roof came off part of the building, and it rained for three days before we could get to it—everything was soaked. We ran a two-year remediation project for the books and the mold.

Later, as deputy university librarian at UCLA, I led renovations and oversaw units like technical services, IT, special collections, and the management library—specialized areas outside my own expertise, but my job was figuring out how to get those teams what they needed. I also had to relocate the entire technical services staff to a building at the edge of campus, a long and difficult project. That kind of operational work is invisible to most people outside the library, but it matters enormously to everyone inside it.

And here at UBC my highlights have been building a leadership team, acquiring Shakespeare’s First Folio, opening a new gallery for our two nationally recognized collections, and serving as ARL president. A lot of great stuff.

Sam: Are there goals you set that you haven’t quite reached?

Susan: One thing bothers me more than anything: getting university administration to truly understand what the library contributes to the whole enterprise. People sort of get it, but not the depth of expertise or how much more the library could be leveraged. Academics running universities don’t always understand operations, and libraries are operations, among other things. If you don’t fund them properly, they can’t function well. You could do so much more as a research enterprise if the library and researchers were properly integrated, instead of segregated as they are now. I think technology will eventually force the issue, just not thoughtfully. That one really bugs me.

Sam: What advice do you have for people who want to work in research libraries?

Susan: Be honest. Listen and learn. The head of the library is furthest from the day-to-day work, so you have to pay close attention to what people are actually doing.

As library head, you have a seat at the table. If you don’t speak up, no one else will. You also have to learn to say no, and be truthful about why, sharing as much as you’re able to. That’s how you build trust, which is hard to come by in academic institutions, often for good reason.

My job at Harvard was challenging for me because I’d never managed people before, and half the people I managed were older than me. You have to get used to things like that.

Take every opportunity to learn. I once had a list of places I never wanted to live—Los Angeles was on it, and that’s exactly where I ended up and loved it. Never say never. Your next opportunity may be somewhere unexpected, and you may be exactly the right person for it if you keep an open mind.

Know your library’s budget and know how you want to accomplish things. A good idea isn’t enough without the ability to fund it. Fundraising will be part of the job. And you have to know your technology while staying skeptical of it. All of that is part of bringing people together in a trustworthy way.

Sam: What do you see as the key issue research libraries will face in the next five years?

Susan: The same thing I mentioned before: convincing people that libraries haven’t fundamentally changed. The mission has always been connecting people with the research and scholarship they need—it just looks different now, and requires different skills. Big research libraries are both print and digital, so we still need the traditional skills, plus new ones layered on top.

Libraries are increasingly publishers themselves, and helping scholars get published is a growing part of the work. AI runs through all of this too. I think the library community is getting better at talking about it—AI literacy is one piece, but there’s more to it, like making sure AI doesn’t divorce a document from its provenance. Libraries could be huge players here if we’re knowledgeable enough to apply it, or explain it to others.

The other big issue is higher education itself, especially in the US, where the stressors are different from anywhere else right now. The university-as-business model is starting to falter, and some institutions are closing. That will continue. What big universities decide to become will affect libraries directly, since it’s a matter of budgeting and marketing; more and more of my meetings are only about those two things. Librarians need to understand they exist in that context and it’s squeezing all of us.

Sam: What still inspires you about librarianship?

Susan: Librarians themselves—they’re amazing experts, incredibly generous, with remarkable range and depth. I love that it’s still the same job at its core, just done with different tools. I don’t think the negative things happening around us will shift that mission—not unless the US descends into total autocracy with total censorship, which I don’t see happening. I’m optimistic because I think librarians and library leaders are part of why it won’t happen.

Sam: What areas do you encourage young professionals to explore?

Susan: Know yourself. Lean into what you’re good at, but don’t neglect the areas you’re not. I encourage people to get into a leadership program—ARL’s are great. I was in the ARL Leadership Fellows Program, and before that UCLA’s Senior Fellows Program. Along the way you’ll take assessments that show you your strengths and gaps, which lets you say honestly, “I’m not strong in this area.” That matters, because otherwise people assume you know everything, and you don’t.

Just yesterday, our head of library IT explained a project using Claude to speed up coding for our catalog’s APIs. I didn’t follow all of it at first, but once it was explained, I could ask good questions, which matters, because I’m often the one advocating for these budgets. Being able to explain a productivity gain relative to cost is exactly what you need to do. Find out who you need to learn from.

Sometimes that’s informal, sometimes it’s formal coursework. I’ve heard colleagues say “get a PhD.” It might help, but I wouldn’t kill yourself over it. I did mine while working, and it was hard. Balance matters, and it’s difficult to strike.

Assemble a team that complements your strengths, and be candid about where you need help. I’m a private, fairly introverted person, and you can’t operate that way all the time—you have to practice being in the public eye. Presenting at conferences is one way. I had a colleague who’d invite people to watch her rehearse a conference talk beforehand. Seek out chances like that.

And find a good mentor—then, once you’ve achieved some things, become one yourself. I’ve been doing that through ARL for a few years, and it’s really great to give that back.

Sam: Do you have a favorite ARL memory?

Susan: Being ARL president was probably the best. That was such a great experience, and I’m so grateful for it. The Leadership Fellows Program was another highlight—the cohort I was in, from 2013 to 2015, had a strong Canadian contingent, and many of those people are now my CARL colleagues. It’s wonderful to have a cohort that you grow with. We visited NC State, Columbia, Waterloo, Toronto, Guelph, and Vanderbilt. People don’t realize how priceless that kind of shared travel and time really is.

Sam: What are you looking forward to next?

Susan: We’ll probably split time between Vancouver and California. I have a lot of fishing to catch up on—surf casting—and Dodgers games. I’m actually collecting on a bet tonight related to Toronto’s World Series loss. I have some writing projects I’ve been saving for after this job—things that are best said with more honesty than the role allows. And I’m looking forward to more time with my wife, a professor who’s been just as busy as I have. We travel often, but never together; it would be nice to do that together.

Sam: Very nice.

Susan: Thanks. Things have changed so much. In my nearly 10 years at UBC alone, so much has shifted. When I started in libraries, we didn’t even have fax machines. It’s hard to explain what searching was like before the internet—blue pages and all that. I got into this field because I love searching, and there will always be searching in libraries. The work is the same. The library is the same. Go back to the Library of Alexandria—it’s still the same mission: collecting things, making sure they survive, and getting them to people. The tools just keep getting better. It’s a great world to work in, especially if you like finding things out.

The post The Same Mission, Different Tools: Susan Parker Reflects on a Career in Libraries appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

The ARL Daily Intelligence is the trusted source of news and analysis for library leaders and advocates.

Released Monday through Thursday, the ARL Daily Intelligence is curated by Gary D. Price, co-founder and editor of Library Journal’s infoDOCKET, and edited and produced by Kaylyn Groves, ARL’s director of Member Communications.

You may subscribe to the email of ARL Daily Intelligence and the ARL Weekly News Roundup, released on Fridays. Both the ARL Daily Intelligence and ARL Weekly News Roundup are available on LinkedIn as well. Thank you for subscribing, reading, and sharing!

Do you work for an ARL member library and have news you want us to share in our Daily Intelligence and Weekly News Roundup? Please email your news link(s) to daily@arl.org.

Schedule note: The Daily Intel will be on hiatus Monday, September 7, for the Labor Day holiday in the US. The Daily Intel will return on Tuesday, September 8.

Jump to:

• Monday, August 31
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
  • Scholars & Scholarship
• Tuesday, September 1
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
• Wednesday, September 2
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
• Thursday, September 3
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
  • Scholars & Scholarship

Monday, August 31

Top o’ the Day

CNI Fall 2026 Call for Proposals
(CNI: Coalition for Networked Information)

CRKN and NRC Add 184 Issues of NRC Research News to Canadiana
(CRKN: Canadian Research Knowledge Network and NRC: National Research Council of Canada)

How AI Forces Higher Education Back to Community (podcast)
(Enrollify)

LIBER AI Pulse Webinar Series Continues
(LIBER: Association of European Research Libraries)

“Scary”: How Misinformation and AI Hallucinations Are Infiltrating Australia’s Parliament
(The Guardian)

The Jobs Are Changing: Is Higher Education Ready to Change with Them?
(Forbes)

2026 CHLOE (Changing Landscape of Online Education) Conversations Report Series Published
(EDUCAUSE)

Workshop Report: The Other AI Is Academic Integrity
(INSEAD Knowledge)

ARL Member Libraries

AI Sandbox Series: A Secure Environment to Explore Artificial Intelligence at the Library
(Library of Congress)

Assessing the Impact of AI on Political Science Information Literacy Instruction
(Georgetown University Library via APSA Preprints) 
 ARL member library authors 

Boston Public Library Unveils Three New Cardholder-Designed Library Cards
(BPL: Boston Public Library)

Celebrating Dolly: Crafts and Music in Medbery Makerspace
(UT Libraries, UT: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

Mentors Matter: Larry Alford Reflects on His Career and the Profession
(University of Toronto Libraries via ARL: Association of Research Libraries)

Rice Archive of the Unexplained Gets Its Own TV Series
(Rice University Fondren Library)

Students Rescue Lost Stories with Archival Research
(Boston University Libraries)

The Winding Road to Self-Compassion and Self-Care as a Library Leader
(MSU Libraries, MSU: Michigan State University via Journal of Library Administration)
 ARL member library authors 

UofL Releases Never-Before-Seen Photos of Dolly Parton in Louisville
(UofL Libraries, UofL: University of Louisville via Louisville Courier Journal)

Scholars & Scholarship

Everything Is a Service: Information Architecture on Academic Library Websites
(The Journal of Academic Librarianship)

Introducing the AI & Metaliteracy OER Toolkit for Teaching and Learning
(Metaliteracy Learning Collaborative)

IOI Fund for Network Adoption: LA Referencia’s Six-Month Progress Update
(IOI: Invest in Open Infrastructure)

Tuesday, September 1

Top o’ the Day

CARL at 50: Celebrating Five Decades of Collaboration and Leadership
(CARL: Canadian Association of Research Libraries)

CLIR and DLF Awarded $200,000 IMLS Grant for DLF Forum Future Stewards Project
(CLIR: Council on Library and Information Resources and DLF: Digital Library Federation)

CMU Researchers Envision Humans and AI as Teammates
(CMU: Carnegie Mellon University)

15 Years, 400,000 Chats, Countless Connections: Ask the Library Marks a Milestone
(OCUL: Ontario Council of University Libraries)

HathiTrust’s Response to Bot Traffic May Impact Users
(HathiTrust)

IU’s Luddy School Digitizes Revolutionary War Artifacts
(Indiana Public Media)

Op-Ed: American Higher Education Is a Mosaic, Not a Monolith
(University Business)

Op-Ed: Forget Smear Campaigns. Politicians Now Use Copyright Law to Scrub the Truth
(Washington Examiner ||| Archive.today version)

Op-Ed: Knowing How to Use AI Tools Is Not the Same as Knowing How to Apply Them Responsibly. Colleges Must Do More
(The Hechinger Report)

US Public Libraries at “Breaking Point” Amid Ideological Attacks, PEN America Study Finds
(The Guardian)

What Dolly Can Teach Us About Trust
(FrameWorks)

Who Is Responsible When AI Helps to Write Science?
(Nature)

ARL Member Libraries

Changing Patterns of Research Guide Use in the Era of Generative AI
(uOttawa Library, uOttawa: University of Ottawa via EBLIP: Evidence Based Library and Information Practice)
 ARL member library authors 

Digitized Dalí
(UC Berkeley Library)

Library Announces Copyright Public Modernization Committee Meeting September 11
(Library of Congress)

Library Trends: Cultural Heritage in Crisis (August 2026)
 ARL member library authors 

• Combating Care: Using Care Ethics to Interrupt Epistemicide (Syracuse University Libraries)
• Save Our Signs: National Park Signs and the Power of Crowdsourcing to Combat Censorship (University of Minnesota Libraries)
• The Data Rescue Project: A Crowdsourced Effort to Preserve At-Risk US Federal Data (Indiana University Bloomington Libraries and University of Pennsylvania Libraries)

Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies Faculty Advance AI Innovation Across Research, Teaching, and Knowledge Stewardship
(Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies)

Rare Book and Manuscript Library Holds Treasure Trove of James Bond, Author Ian Fleming Materials
(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign University Library)

2026 Library Design Showcase
(Columbia University Li Lu Law Library via American Libraries magazine)

Video: If It’s Not in the Data, It’s Not in the Decisions
(Colorado State University Libraries via ACRL: Association of College and Research Libraries YouTube channel)

Wednesday, September 2

Top o’ the Day

Academic AI Strategy Establishes Shared Vision for Teaching and Learning at Georgia Tech
(Georgia Tech University)

Apply for ARL Intensive Learning Program—Deadline October 19
(ARL: Association of Research Libraries)

Defining Preprints and Preprint Servers: Mapping an Inconsistent Landscape
(ScholCommLab)

Limits of Trust
(Brunswick Review)

New Tool Uses AI to Help Undergraduates Think Critically About Research
(NC State University)

Strengthening Trust and Leadership: Securing NIH Controlled-Access Data and Our Data-Protection Journey
(NIH: US National Institutes of Health)

Student Civic Leadership Learning Platform
(Campus Connect)

The Best, Worst, and Strangest Ways AI Is Really Being Used at Work
(Financial Times ||| open version)

This University Built an AI Curriculum Before ChatGPT. Now It Wants to Help Other Schools Do the Same
(CNN ||| open version)

What Work Does Generative AI Do?
(NBER: National Bureau of Economic Research)

ARL Member Libraries

AI + OER Case Studies: A DOERS Project
(NC State University Libraries and University of Virginia Library with Oklahoma State University Libraries)
 ARL member library authors 

Ann Patchett Accepts Prize for American Fiction, Delights SRO National Book Festival Audience
(Library of Congress)

Assessing Researcher Data Sharing Practices Using Publicly Available Dataset Metadata: A Reproducible Workflow for Institutional Stakeholders
(Oklahoma State University Libraries and University of Kentucky Libraries via JLSC: Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication)
 ARL member library authors 

CRL Announces 2026–27 Global Collections Committee Steering Subcommittee Officers
(Many ARL member libraries with CRL: Center for Research Libraries)

From Toolkit to Playbook: An Update on the Digital Preservation Advocacy Project
(APTrust: Academic Preservation Trust, University of Virginia Library)

Librarians Igniting Research Journeys: A First-Year Experience Course on Undergraduate Research
(University of Minnesota Libraries via Currents in Teaching & Learning)
 ARL member library authors 

Mitchell Memorial Library at MSU Unveils Transformed Fifth Floor
(Mississippi State University (MSU) Libraries)

New Digital Collections Now Available
(Tulane University Libraries)

“Viewing Student Films Is Like Participating in a Revolution”: UCLA Motion Picture and Television Divisions, 1965–70
(UCLA Library)

With Recent Renovations, Library’s Lowest Level Is a Dungeon No More
(Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries)

Thursday, September 3

Top o’ the Day

Gen Z Can’t Figure Out How to Talk to Their Millennial and Gen X Bosses—and It’s Becoming a Workplace Crisis
(Fortune via Yahoo)

Guidance on Using CC Licenses in an AI Ecosystem
(CC: Creative Commons)

How to Measure What Matters: A Practical Guide to Assessing Postsecondary Value
(IHEP: Institute for Higher Education Policy)

Issue Brief: Research Security & Collaborations of Concern
(COGR)

National Summit on Local News Preservation: Event Report
(Internet Archive)

New Guidelines Created for Publishing Indigenous Data
(Dartmouth College)

Pangram’s Biggest Flaw Is Users Turning Its Scores into Public Shaming
(The Decoder)

Strengthening Academic Freedom & Institutional Resilience in the European Research Area
(Science Europe)

US Government Backs OpenAI in Copyright Fight with Publishers
(WSJ: The Wall Street Journal)
See also: Re:Create Applauds DOJ’s Filing in NYT v. OpenAI (Re:Create)

“Welcome to the AGI Era”: OpenAI Launches GPT-6 Astra
(VentureBeat)

ARL Member Libraries

College & Research Libraries News (September 2026)
 ARL member library authors 

• AI as Assessment Partner: Practical Applications and Critical Cautions, Part 2 (Colorado State University Libraries)
• Policy, Procedure, and Perceptions: Mapping the Sociomaterial in Academic Libraries (UC San Diego Library and University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library)
• Presentation Consultations: Concepts and Practices (University of Oklahoma Libraries)

Dean of Libraries Robert Fox to Retire from University of Louisville
(University of Louisville Libraries)

Honoring 75 Years: MD Anderson Library Celebrates Its Past and Future
(University of Houston (UH) Libraries)
Also from UH: Video: MD Anderson Library, Reimagined

IMLS Begins Announcing 2026 Library Investments
(Many ARL member libraries via IMLS: US Institute of Museum and Library Services)

Local Artist Gives Over 20,000 Digital Pieces to South Caroliniana Library
(University of South Carolina University Libraries)

Long-Lost Film Rediscovered in UMD Library: Here’s Why It Matters
(University of Maryland (UMD) Libraries via WTOP)

Scholars & Scholarship

Anthropic’s Content Checker Tool Is Here, with One Big Catch
(CNET)

From Integrity to Efficiency Shame: Rethinking Generative AI in Scholarly Publishing
(Interactions)

Funding Cuts, Public Trust, and AI Dominate Concerns for Physical Scientists, Survey Reveals
(AIP: American Institute of Physics)

The Impact of AI on Podcasts: From Linear Digression to SuperDataScience
(Harvard Data Science Review Podcast)

Curated by Gary D. Price, MLIS
Co-Founder and Editor, Library Journal’s infoDOCKET
Information Industry Analyst
Librarian

http://infoDOCKET.com
@infodocket

About the Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit membership organization of research libraries and archives in major public and private universities, federal government agencies, and large public institutions in Canada and the US. ARL champions research libraries and archives, develops visionary leaders, and shapes policy for the equitable advancement of knowledge.

The post ARL Daily Intelligence (August 31–September 3) appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

Larry Alford (ARL president 2016) steps back from the position of university chief librarian at the University of Toronto Libraries this summer after 15 years in the role. Earlier this year, Larry spoke with ARL about his career and research librarianship in the interview below.

Audrey: Larry, why and how did you get started in librarianship?

Larry: There actually are two answers to that. We were a fairly poor family growing up. My father was born legally blind, but he was able to graduate from university and had a fast-food lunch counter. When I was about 13 or 14, I had to go down to the lunch counter after school and wash the coffee urns and mop the floors, and fill up the drink coolers with bottled drinks. When I was 16 or so, I didn’t want to do that anymore. A friend of mine worked at the public library and said they needed somebody who was willing to go to their annex, which was in an old mansion, crawl through tarps, cobwebs, and stuff to retrieve books, and if I was willing to do that, they would give me the job. So I started working in the public library.

Then, during my first year as an undergraduate at UNC–Chapel Hill, I worked at what was called the traffic office. I was sort of a hippie at the time, with long hair, and I learned quickly that I didn’t like giving out tickets to people—an essential part of the job. So I went to the library and was hired in the undergraduate library. They needed somebody who would work on a Saturday night. They hired me and another guy to work on a Saturday night. We had been trained for an hour. Then we were left totally in charge of the library, by ourselves. We survived, and I’ve pretty much worked in libraries ever since.

Audrey: Hippies go to the library, I love it.

Larry: I had a great boss in the undergraduate library at UNC. I worked in every single level of job, from student to the most junior classified staff to interim university librarian, so literally every level. I had a boss in the undergraduate library who encouraged me to go to the Information and Library Science School and get a master’s degree if I was going to keep working in libraries. He really encouraged me and pushed me to do it while I was working full-time. He passed away long ago, but I give him a lot of credit for having pushed me to do that.

Audrey: Someone who believes in you.

Larry: Mentors matter.

Audrey: They do.

Larry: A lot.

Audrey: What are some of the highlights of your career? You worked in all levels of the organization. What are some of the things that stood out to you?

Larry: It’s a long career, but one highlight was about two years after I’d gotten my library degree, and I was a librarian, I was named as head of what was then called the circulation department at UNC–Chapel Hill, and essentially inherited the responsibilities of the previous circulation librarian. We had to begin the planning for moving into a new research library, which was, at that point, the largest and most expensive building ever built by the state of North Carolina. I knew absolutely nothing about steel shelving, or planning moves, or anything, but I was the liaison for the library to the construction. I was part of the construction meetings every week and worked on planning the purchase and installation of all the equipment. It was pretty amazing. There was a huge learning curve, because I knew almost nothing about it, but it was a lot of fun. It was 16- to 18-hour days. But it was a great experience. At the same time, I was running a department with 26 staff and 40 to 50 student assistants. It was an amazing experience.

Over the years, there was a transition to electronic information that started happening in the ‘90s. I was very involved in the first statewide licensing in North Carolina. I was actually the lead negotiator, along with a wonderful colleague at North Carolina State. That was an incredible transition for libraries.

Leaving UNC after 30 years for Temple University in Philadelphia was also a wonderful experience and so different from UNC. Philadelphia is a wonderful city. We lived in a 200-year-old house four blocks from Independence Hall. Temple’s mission to welcome students who are the first in their families to attend university and to engage deeply with the North Philadelphia communities was and is so inspiring.

And coming to Toronto was certainly an amazing experience. Not just coming to the University of Toronto, but coming to a new and different country.

Now the transitions are going on around AI, which I think are likely to be as dramatic a change in libraries as electronic information was in the ‘90s. I hear some of the same concerns—legitimate and real concerns—as well as the incredible opportunities.

Audrey: The theme is that you came into a new position and were put in charge during times of change.

Larry: I was. I was 29, 30 years old. It really was an amazing experience. My boss, the circulation librarian at UNC, had been a captain in World War II in the American Navy. His ship was hit. He was the senior surviving officer and gave the abandon ship order. They were in shark-infested water overnight. It is a scary tale. As a manager, he also operated on a need-to-know basis. My first week in the job after they hired me, the university librarian brought me the bid response to buy the shelving for the new stack. So this was a huge, huge contract in terms of the dollars at the time. He said, “You need to evaluate these and say what we should do.” Well, I’d never seen the specs. I knew nothing about steel shelving at all. I didn’t even understand what it meant to talk about cantilever shelving, or steel gauge, or all that, so I had a week to basically learn all of this, and then evaluate these bid responses and make a recommendation. It was exciting and scary all at the same time, but a lot of fun.

Audrey: You went from being trained for an hour to run the library with one other person, and then just doing it, and then determining the shelving, and I assume that when you were negotiating the contracts for electronic resources, they just sent you out there to do that, too?

Larry: Pretty much. At UNC–Chapel Hill, we had a really good lawyer who we worked closely with, but yes, basically. And there were lots of arguments those days about interlibrary loan, and who had access, and walk-in users, and some of those arguments still exist, but the information providers didn’t understand either what these licenses should actually say. So, I think we were sort of groping for what the licenses should actually turn out to be, which was interesting. It really was the Wild Wild West.

Audrey: It also seems like your career highlights were when people put their trust in you. People really trusted you to make the right decision.

Larry: There was a woman named Amy Dyckman who was an associate chief librarian, or associate university librarian, at North Carolina State. She and I worked together, and Amy has since passed away, but she was an amazing colleague to work with. Part of what makes one successful is having amazing colleagues you can work with. I think that’s incredibly important.

Audrey: Were there goals that you set as a director that you have not yet reached? With the caveat that you still have a few more months to go.

Larry: There are always goals I would like to see us accomplish. We’re doing a lot of work around AI at the University of Toronto Libraries. I certainly would like to see more of that come to fruition. As far as I know, we’re the only library in North America that has locally loaded almost all of the journal literature, so we have something like 80 million articles sitting on servers here, several million ebooks, massive archives. It’s about 3 petabytes of text. One of my goals has been: how can we use that legally, not violating copyright, which I believe deeply in, and intellectual property rights, but how can we use that to really facilitate new forms of research? I believe there are all kinds of medical cures and deeper understanding of the human condition buried in all of that massive amount of data, and we have to figure out how to let researchers use that in legal ways, but really push new forms of research. That has certainly been something I’ve been talking about for years, even before AI, with traditional text and data mining and pattern analysis. I think it’s incredibly important that we pursue how that data can be used in new and innovative ways, now using the power of AI, using it ethically and responsibly as well. So, if there was anything, it would be that.

But also, part of my passion has been building spaces for students. I think we sometimes forget in universities that students pay our salaries literally. Certainly, at the University of Toronto, I’m fond of saying that 80% of our salaries are paid by students, either through the student tuition or through the provincial grant that comes for each student. It’s not a block grant; it’s for each student based on enrollment. I think it’s important that we think about those students and their experience in everything we do. So while it’s not necessarily an unmet goal, one of my passions is actually how we can continue to think about those students and improve their experience, not just in using libraries, but across the university, making the library a focus of their academic lives. And there’s always more to do there.

Audrey: What are some of the goals for student access that you set for yourself but haven’t yet reached?

Larry: It’s not so much unreached, but we’ve done a number of projects and still have a couple. We built a 1,200-seat addition to the main humanities and social sciences library at the University of Toronto, which is already a million-square-foot building. It had 4,800 seats; we’ve added another 1,200. We renovated the old reference room, which once had 200,000 books in it, and now it is all student space. We’ve done other smaller projects across the 40 or so libraries that are at the U of T. Many of those are completed. It’s interesting to me that when we opened the 1200-seat Robarts Common addition, we didn’t announce it, we just opened it, because we had an occupancy permit, but there was final finishing work still happening. We just opened the doors one morning. By noon, it was full. Students just found out, started texting each other, sending messages on social media, and by noon, almost every seat was full. It has been ever since, at least during the regular semesters. That’s the kind of difference I think we can make for students. One of the things I will miss is working on those kinds of projects. I don’t take credit for these things. It’s the staff who have done these things. We also have a family space so that graduate students, especially, but any student, actually, who has children can come in with their children and have a place to study while the children also have a place to be safe. We also have prayer and meditation spaces. I think all of those are improving accessibility in every way that we can. I think all of those are critical to the student experience.

Audrey: It’s a real “if you build it, they will come.”

Larry: You build it, they will come, and they need it.

Audrey: What advice do you have for individuals who aspire to leadership positions or roles in libraries?

Larry: Several things. One is, many people have heard me say, I believe greatly that to be effective, change needs to respect the culture and history of the organization. And every organization can be different. I mean, the three institutions I’ve been at, UNC–Chapel Hill, Temple University—a wonderful institution in Philadelphia—and the University of Toronto, are very different in terms of their culture, their history, both in the library and institutionally, and I think change needs to be by evolution rather than revolution. I think change that is ego-driven by a leader, one who says, “I’m going to make my mark,” is almost always a failure. Because it’s actually not about the leader, it has to be about the organization. As I said earlier, it has to be about student experience, about faculty experience in universities and research libraries.

I also believe in bringing values and trying to always think about the values that one brings. Many years ago, the university librarian at UNC, who mentored me—again, mentors are really important—had a series of values. I turned those into four values that I have tried to follow. The first is to tell the truth. That seems obvious, but it’s amazing to me how many people don’t tell the truth. That doesn’t mean you have to say everything you know, confidentiality is important, but don’t lie. Second, listen to users and listen to staff. That also sounds obvious, but it often doesn’t actually happen. And it’s really important. Third, treat people with respect, which comes out of listening. And, finally, learn to say no, and learn how to say no. Because I think there are ways to say no, and you often have to say no in positions like this, probably more often than you can say yes. But learning both to do that and how to do it is absolutely essential.

Audrey: It may seem like the change is happening slower, but it’s more long-lasting?

Larry: Exactly. It’s more long-lasting, it’s more effective in the long run in my view.

Audrey: What key issues do you think research libraries will face in the next five years? You mentioned AI.

Larry: AI is an obvious one, but from my perspective, maybe a more important key issue is how do we continue the thousands of years of tradition, if you go back to the great Alexandria Library, of preserving the record of human culture and history, and by that, I mean the good and the bad, because I actually think it’s important to preserve the bad things, the evil things that humans do so that people can understand them later, and understand history and understand what happens. But in an electronic age, how do we make sure we can preserve that? It’s obvious in print, and certainly at the University of Toronto, we have something like 13 million print volumes, 30-some thousand linear meters of archives, maybe more. There is an enormous amount of history, culture, research record that’s preserved in that, but increasingly, it’s all coming electronically, and how do we ensure that 100 years, 200 years from now, that record will still be preserved? I’m not sure that we have figured out how to do that. We may have figured out how to do it for 10 years, but not for 100 years, and I think that’s more critical in some ways than AI, in my view, to really think through that, and how do we do it? And the answer can’t be, “We’re just going to buy the analog version, we’re going to buy the print version, and put it on a shelf somewhere.” I don’t think that’s a viable option. I think we have to think more carefully. I know there’s lots of work that’s gone on across the US, and certainly in Canada, where we’re looking at a national repository that’s coming out of the work that’s been done at the University of Toronto for the journal articles, but I just think it’s a critical thing to think through.

Additionally, universities are under attack. They are particularly under attack in the US but also increasingly in other parts of the world, including Canada. The core values of academic freedom and freedom of expression coupled with tenure are, in many cases, under attack. I believe libraries are an important part of preserving academic freedom and free speech. I believe we sometimes alienate the general public who don’t enjoy the kind of job security that we have in many universities and, by extension, research libraries. Tenure is really important, important for research, teaching, learning, and the preservation of academic freedom, which is in turn essential to foster robust leading-edge research. But it can be seen as a culture of entitlement by those who may be laid off tomorrow. How we talk about tenure as a right when so many people feel that their jobs are precarious can cause resentment about the academy and diminished public support. We need to think about what that means for the future of universities and the preservation of our essential core values, especially academic freedom and tenure.

Audrey: What still inspires you about librarianship?

Larry: I think that what has always inspired me is our students—working with students and faculty to support teaching, learning, and research. I think that working at a university around young people keeps you feeling young, even if it’s not physically true. I think it’s working with amazing students and faculty who are doing incredible research, whether it’s working on what one of my colleagues here is calling Old Books, New Science projects—exploring rare books in new and different ways using spectroscopy, portable imaging, and other tools—or people who are doing leading-edge cancer research within the university, and we are supporting that work in various ways. A number of institutions, including ours, now offer undergraduate research awards. Every year, we hear about the incredible work those students are doing that gets supported by what we do in libraries. That’s what it’s about, and that’s what’s so inspiring. It’s really the students and the faculty, and the work we can do to support their work. I felt that way ever since I started working in libraries. Just how we do it is different now. When I first started, and my colleagues roll their eyes a bit when I say this, but the technology we used was a #2 pencil, an electric eraser, a beehive terminal, and key-punch machines for data entry. And nobody even knows what most of that technology is anymore. That’s all changed, but the core work we do to support teaching, learning, and research has not changed.

Audrey: For young professionals, what areas in librarianship would you encourage them to focus on?

Larry: This may be stating the obvious, but I think data is becoming so much more important, how we export it. I include text as data. We have vast amounts of texts at the University of Toronto, 80 million journal articles. It is important to preserve that research record and those articles. As important is to treat that as data and to understand the power of having that data accessible to explore. Therefore, having skills around managing data, preserving data, using data, and around how to use technology in terms of AI and other technologies, including in more traditional areas, such as rare books, is important. I mentioned our projects around book science, which are happening in other places too. Understanding books as artifacts is a really important way to understand social history. Using technology in those ways is really important. I also think it’s important to embed those in the principles of librarianship that we’ve developed over the last century and a half. It is important for iSchools to begin to look at their curricula. When I talk to our new professionals, it’s very interesting to me to hear about their iSchool experiences. I’m not singling any particular school out, but often what they say to me is that they learn more by working in libraries with library professionals in student jobs and internships than they actually learned in their courses. That’s something to think through. Why is that, and what does that mean for curriculum change in iSchools?

Audrey: I feel like that’s the same for most professional degrees.

Larry: Maybe what you learn is the core basic principles in the courses, and you actually learn the practical stuff by working. That may be, but my sense from recent grads is that they wish they had had more practical courses that gave them more practical, immediate skills, particularly in terms of technology knowledge. This is anecdotal, of course. This is obviously not a statistically valid sample that I’ve done, but it is what I hear consistently from talking to people.

Audrey: That makes sense. What do you look forward to in the next phase of your life?

Larry: Well, I’ll be working for two more years, and so it’s not that I’m retiring, and I’m hopefully going to be working fairly closely with one of our faculty members on Old Books New Science, hoping to see if we can bring in some more money, in various ways. I’m looking forward to that. But I’ve worked since I was 14 years old, so it’ll be interesting to see. Other than that and some travel, I don’t have any concrete plans. We’ll have to figure that out. I’m a bit concerned that I’ve worked most of my life, so suddenly I’m not going to be getting up in the morning and going to work, which will be a very strange thing.

Audrey: Is there anything else that you would like to share? Any other words that you’d like to add to this?

Larry: For me, I’ve been lucky to enjoy coming to work almost every day of my life. Maybe not when I was doing exit control at UNC–Chapel Hill, but after that, over the years, involved with young people, with faculty who are doing such amazing work and research, I can’t think of a better way to have spent a career than doing all this.

I also want to acknowledge the amazing people with whom I have been privileged to work over the decades. Any successes I have had are really theirs, a legion of extraordinary people with whom I have been so fortunate to work. At the University of North Carolina, where I began, I was surrounded by mentors who shaped how I think about libraries, leadership, and service, and who took a chance on me. As I moved into more senior roles, at UNC and later at Temple University, and then the University of Toronto, my colleagues challenged me, supported me, and helped me evolve. And at the University of Toronto, I found something very special in the legacy of previous chief librarians, particularly Carole Moore and Robert Blackburn both legendary librarians. Serving as only the sixth U of T chief librarian since 1892 is both remarkable and a special responsibility. I walk by the portraits of my predecessors every day and am reminded of their work and legacy that I have tried to continue and I hear them say “don’t mess it up!” I hope I haven’t.

Audrey: Well, I’ve only experienced you as a panelist and speaker for ARL fellows, but the amount of effort you put into sharing your wisdom, as you said in the beginning, mentoring and the importance there for not only your staff, but for others in the discipline has been quite impactful. I know that the people who experience you and what you have to share have been all the better for it, so thank you.

Larry: I do appreciate that.

The post Mentors Matter: Larry Alford Reflects on His Career and the Profession appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

The ARL Daily Intelligence is the trusted source of news and analysis for library leaders and advocates.

Released Monday through Thursday, the ARL Daily Intelligence is curated by Gary D. Price, co-founder and editor of Library Journal’s infoDOCKET, and edited and produced by Kaylyn Groves, ARL’s director of Member Communications.

You may subscribe to the email of ARL Daily Intelligence and the ARL Weekly News Roundup, released on Fridays. Both the ARL Daily Intelligence and ARL Weekly News Roundup are available on LinkedIn as well. Thank you for subscribing, reading, and sharing!

Do you work for an ARL member library and have news you want us to share in our Daily Intelligence and Weekly News Roundup? Please email your news link(s) to daily@arl.org.

Jump to:

• Monday, August 24
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
• Tuesday, August 25
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
  • Scholars & Scholarship
• Wednesday, August 26
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
  • Higher Ed
  • Scholars & Scholarship
• Thursday, August 27
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries

Monday, August 24

Top o’ the Day

AI in Universities: The Case in Favour
AI in Universities: The Case Against
(University Affairs)

Bradford P. Wilson Confirmed by US Senate as 12th Archivist of the United States
(NARA: US National Archives and Records Administration)

Canada AI Strategy and Higher Education
(Higher Education Strategy Associates)

CommonApp Annual Report Shows Increase in College Applications
(Government Technology)

Does AI Fight or Fuel Election Disinformation?
(Brennan Center for Justice)

Exclusive: FTC Urged to Investigate AI Firms for Destroying Books
(Axios)

Harvard Is Selling a $699 Course Taught by AI Clones of Its Faculty
(The New York Times ||| Archive.today version)

Library Copyright Alliance Advocates for Copyright Regulations to Facilitate Research, Teaching and Learning, Preservation, and Accessibility
(LCA: Library Copyright Alliance via ARL: Association of Research Libraries)

OpenAIRE Annual Report 2025: A Year of Open by Default
(OpenAIRE)
Also from OpenAIRE: How Open Research Intelligence Protects the Scientific Record

Thomson Reuters Built Its Own AI Model off Chinese Tech to Rely Less on Claude
(Business Insider ||| Archive.today version)

We Don’t Need to Wait for an AI Disaster to Estimate Its Costs
(AI Frontiers)

ARL Member Libraries

A World of Librarians: IFLA Brings the Global Library Community Together
(University at Buffalo University Libraries)

Artificial Intelligence in the Academic Library: A National Study of STEM Librarians’ Practices and Perceptions
(UNC University Library, UNC: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via 2026 ASEE Annual Conference papers)
 ARL member library authors 

First Weeks Show Early, Active Use of ReCAP Borrowing by Researchers
(Yale University Library)
Also from Yale: Library Trials AI Lab Program That Offers Researchers Hands-On Support

Jeff Schlanger Donates His musicWitness® Project Archive to University of Pittsburgh Library System
(University of Pittsburgh Library System)

Margaret I. King Library: UK’s Historic Heart, Home of Kentucky’s History
(UK Libraries, UK: University of Kentucky)
Also from UK: King Library Closed for Renovations

60 Years at Hayden Library
(ASU Library, ASU: Arizona State University)

UGA-Led Project Receives NEH Grant to Preserve and Share Georgia’s Colonial History
(UGA Libraries, UGA: University of Georgia)

Video: Introducing Mobile Cougar Card Entry to UH Libraries
(University of Houston (UH) Libraries YouTube channel)
More video from UH Libraries: UH MD Anderson Library 75th Anniversary Celebration

What Makes UC Davis Library Collections Distinctive: Chocolate and Cacao
(UC Davis Library)

Tuesday, August 25

Top o’ the Day

ARL/CARL 2027 Joint Program Planning Task Force Confirmed
(ARL: Association of Research Libraries and CARL: Canadian Association of Research Libraries)

Country Star, Philanthropist Dolly Parton Has Died at 80
(The Tennessean via Yahoo)
See also:

• An advocate for libraries, and a Vol for Life. We will always love you, Dolly! (University of Tennessee Libraries LinkedIn page)
• Remembering Dolly (Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library LinkedIn page)
• Video: The Library That Dolly Built—Official Trailer (Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library YouTube Channel)

Dr. Cara Gillis Joins Mellon Foundation as Program Officer in Higher Learning 
(The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation)

Eight NSF Research Institutes to Propel US Quantum Science with $290 Million Investment
(NSF: US National Science Foundation)

1 Week Left to Express Interest in Planning the Inaugural IMPACT Research Library Summit 2028
(ARL: Association of Research Libraries)

Passing on the Torch—Speech by Julien Roche, LIBER President 2022–26
(LIBER: Association of European Research Libraries)

Perplexity Partners with Nvidia to Launch Portable Computer, a Fully Local AI Agent with Zero Token Costs
(VentureBeat)

Routing Is Coming for the Frontier AI Labs
(Axios)
See also: AI Agents Are Changing How Companies Choose Which AI Model Does the Work (Business Standard)

Survey: 56% of AI Enthusiasts (and a Third of All Users) Tell Chatbots Things They Keep from Other People
(DuckDuckGo Research)

The AI Adoption Phase Is Over. The Next Competitive Advantage Is Trust.
(Fast Company)

Why Colleges Are Cutting Black Studies Departments, Majors and Classes
(The Washington Post ||| Archive.today version)

ARL Member Libraries

How Brown University Is Navigating the Rise of Generative AI Use in the Classroom
(Brown University Library via Brown University)
See also: The report: Generative AI in Teaching and Learning (GAITL) Committee Final Report and Recommendations

“Jargon Blaster” Learning Game Gains National Attention
(UT Libraries, UT: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

Leavey Library’s New Study Pods Offer Students a Quiet, Private Place to Study—or Talk
(USC Libraries, USC: University of Southern California)

Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) Launches AI Creative Labs, Expanding Hands-On AI Learning at Penn State
(Penn State University Libraries)
See also: Game On Exploring the AI Arcade at Penn State (EDUCAUSE Review)

UBC Library 2025/26 Senate Report
(UBC Library, UBC: The University of British Columbia)

Video: Charleston In Between—Session 3: Academic Libraries in a Reconfigured Knowledge Economy
(University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries via Charleston Hub YouTube channel)

Scholars & Scholarship

From Diagnoses to Treatments, Why Americans Use AI Chatbots for Health
(Pew Research Center)

Open-Weight AI Models for Local and Private Use
(OCUL: Ontario Council of University Libraries)

Who Does AI Consider an Expert? New Benchmark Shows Bias Across 22 LLMs
(Complexity Science Hub)

Wednesday, August 26

Top o’ the Day

Archiving Democracy: How the US End of Term Web Archive Preserves Government History
(Internet Archive)

Etzioni on AI: An Opinionated Glossary of AI
(GeekWire)

Guest Post: The Uncomfortable Truth an Explosion of Papers Reveals About Authors’ Access to Data
(Retraction Watch)

Honoring the Life and Work of Dolly Parton (Statements from Libraries, Literacy Organizations & Others)
(infoDOCKET)
ARL member highlights:

• An (Extremely) Fond Farewell to Dolly Parton, Library Friend and Children’s Literacy Champion (Library of Congress)
• I Will Always Love You: Dolly-Themed Makerspace Event Tuesday, September 1 (University of Georgia Libraries)
• Video: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library’s 100 Millionth Book Donation (Library of Congress via C-SPAN YouTube channel)

“I Am Very Concerned”: Bill Gates Says the World Needs a Plan to Deal with AI, and He Has Three Ideas to Start
(GeekWire)

Inside the Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training
(404 Media)

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) One Year Later: What’s Back, What’s Missing, and What Comes Next
(The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education)

Researchers Presented 6,000 Papers at a Major Meeting. Could AI Reproduce Their Findings?
(Science)

Supporting Open Infrastructure at Your Institution: Five Guiding Principles
(SCOSS: Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services)

ARL Member Libraries

Are AI Models Getting Better at Cataloging? Evidence from a Two-Point Comparative Study
(UC Irvine Libraries and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library via Proceedings of the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications 2026)
 ARL member library authors 

Library Updates and Upgrades You Should Know About
(UNC University Library, UNC: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Proceedings of the 2026 Midwest Business Librarian Summit
 ARL member library authors 

• A Tale of Two Business Librarians: Integrating AI into Business Library Services (University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries)
• Dataweb.ai—When Librarians Start Building Research Tools Using AI, Not Just Using Them (Vanderbilt University Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries)
• Forthcoming Book: The International Business Information Handbook, Finding and Using Global Resources (Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies)
• Pedagogical Partnership: Co-Navigating AI and Information Literacy in Higher Ed (Keynote) (Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies)
• Too Big for One-Shots, Too Complicated for Videos: Insights and Best Practices for Train-the-Trainer Programs (Indiana University Libraries Bloomington)
• What Didn’t Work and Why It Matters: Failure and Growth in Business Librarianship (University of Kentucky Libraries)

Vanderbilt Television News Archive Launches New Web Platform with Improved Search Capabilities
(Vanderbilt University Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries)

Video Game Heavy Hitter Eliminating IRL Offerings: Are Academic Libraries Our Best Path to Preservation?
(University of Michigan Library)

What Is the Future of the Biodiversity Heritage Library?
(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library)

Higher Ed

AI Can Now Credibly Complete Most Undergraduate Assignments, MIT Warns
(The Washington Post ||| Archive.today version)

Engaged Students More Confident in Their Post-High School Future
(Gallup)

Scholars & Scholarship

Dryad Releases 2025 Annual Report: Enhanced Service, Robust Partnerships, and Rising Data Publications
(Dryad)

NISO Publishes Phase III of the Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) Recommended Practice
(NISO: National Information Standards Organization)

Thursday, August 27

Top o’ the Day

AI Infrastructure to Accelerate AI Convergence and Catalyze US Scientific Innovation: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief, 2026
(NASEM: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine)

Asking the Harder Question: What Happens When Article Growth Outruns the Agreement?
(CAUL: Council of Australasian University Librarians)

Back to School: The Gender Gap in Higher Education and the Decline in International Enrollment
(New America)

Culture and Ethics Meets Tech: UCLA Debuts Country’s First Bachelor’s in Digital Humanities
(CalMatters)
See also: USC and UCLA Bet Big on AI to Meet Soaring Student, Job Market Demands (Los Angeles Times)

Engaging Community: A Toolkit for Reciprocal Teaching and Learning Beyond the Campus
(Campus Compact and AAC&U: American Association of Colleges and Universities)

Governing Generative AI in Higher Education: Emerging Policy Approaches and Support Ecosystems at Innovative US Universities
(International Journal for Educational Integrity)

HathiTrust Receives Grant to Deliver AI-Enabled Access to Digital Books
(HathiTrust)
See also: Authors Alliance Joins with HathiTrust and Northeastern University on “Transparent Books” (Authors Alliance)

Internet Censorship’s Implications on Academic Research: Motivating an Academic Accessibility by Design
(Communications of the ACM)

John O’Brien Announces Retirement as President and CEO of EDUCAUSE
(EDUCAUSE)

The 2026 United Nations High-Level Political Forum: Librarian Perspectives
(IFLA: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions)

Where Instructors Turn to Learn About AI
(Ithaka S+R)

ARL Member Libraries

A Busy Summer with the University Libraries Creation and Innovation Hubs
(University of Minnesota Libraries)

Dolly Parton and Liquid Paper
(UNT University Libraries, UNT: University of North Texas)

Down into the Archives: How to Explore the UW Special Collections
(UW Libraries, UW: University of Washington via The Daily UW)

Helping Local Communities Preserve Their Histories
(UC Santa Barbara Library)

Inside One of the World’s Few Crash Courses in Conserving and Caring for Ancient Papyrus Manuscripts
(University of Michigan Library via AP: The Associated Press)

Senex Maps Collection Beautifully Charts the Known (and Unknown) World
(WSU Libraries, WSU: Washington State University)
Also from WSU: Indigenous Fishing Rights Collection Now Available for Research in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections

The Man Behind the Memorabilia: Howard Hughes’s Legacy Lives on at UNLV
(UNLV University Libraries, UNLV: University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

UNC Libraries Is Home to a Special Dolly Parton Recording. Here’s What to Know.
(UNC University Library, UNC: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via Chapelboro)

Curated by Gary D. Price, MLIS
Co-Founder and Editor, Library Journal’s infoDOCKET
Information Industry Analyst
Librarian

http://infoDOCKET.com
@infodocket

About the Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit membership organization of research libraries and archives in major public and private universities, federal government agencies, and large public institutions in Canada and the US. ARL champions research libraries and archives, develops visionary leaders, and shapes policy for the equitable advancement of knowledge.

The post ARL Daily Intelligence (August 24–27) appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) triennial rulemaking cycle has kicked off again.

Section 1201 of the DMCA  bars users from circumventing technological protection measures (TPMs)—digital locks that restrict what users can do with copyrighted materials—even when the underlying use is lawful. The DMCA allows circumvention under certain circumstances, including reverse engineering, encryption research, and security testing. For uses outside of these statutory exceptions, advocates must successfully make the case to the Library of Congress in a rulemaking that a temporary three-year exemption is justified. The US Copyright Office, which administers the rulemaking for the Library of Congress, has an expedited procedure for renewing an existing exemption if rightsholders do not object to its renewal.

A New Petition for Accessibility

ARL and ALA (the Library Copyright Alliance), together with the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and American Council of the Blind (ACB), are petitioning for a new exemption that would allow libraries and other public entities to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II regulations for digital content. Those regulations were finalized in 2024, and take effect for most entities in 2026.

Among its provisions, ADA Title II requires public entities to ensure that web content they make available is readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. This means a library that subscribes to a streaming service like Kanopy or Hoopla has an obligation to ensure that accessibility features such as audio descriptions or synchronized captions are available to users who need them. ADA Title II incorporates the universally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 into federal disability law, and requires public entities to meet WCAG Level A and Level AA success criteria.

Libraries subscribe to a wide range of digital services to provide content for their users, but much of that content remains inaccessible. To meet the standards for audiovisual and literary works, a library will need to circumvent TPMs to provide captions or audio descriptions for streaming audiovisual content. An exemption currently permits circumvention of TPMs to add captions or audio descriptions, but it is limited to disability services offices at educational institutions. The petition by libraries and disability rights groups will demonstrate the need for libraries and other public entities to circumvent TPMs when necessary to create accessible versions of materials for people with disabilities for any purpose, in line with the ADA standards.

Library Copyright Alliance Petitions for Renewals

As the new rulemaking begins, a series of regulations allowing libraries, educators, disability services officers, and others to bypass digital locks on copyrighted works is set to expire in October 2027. Today, the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) submitted petitions to renew these current exemptions:

• Preservation of motion pictures on DVDs and Blu-ray discs that are damaged or deteriorating, and that are unavailable for purchase or streaming to cultural heritage institutions
• Captioning and audio description of videos by disability services offices or other units of educational institutions, to create equitable educational experiences for people with disabilities
• Ebook accessibility using read-aloud functionality, screen readers, or other assistive technologies for blind, visually impaired, and print-disabled readers
• Video game preservation by libraries, archives, and museums
• Software preservation and remote access to preserved out-of-commerce software
• Educational uses of motion pictures in nonprofit digital and media literacy programs offered by libraries, museums, and other nonprofit entities with an educational mission
• Use of audiovisual works for educational purposes in K–12 and higher education, as well as MOOCs—LCA joined Peter Decherney, University of Pennsylvania professor, in petitioning for this exemption.
• Text and data mining of motion pictures and literary works for the purposes of scholarly research and teaching by a researcher, student, or staff affiliated with a nonprofit institution of higher education

The post Library Copyright Alliance Advocates for Copyright Regulations to Facilitate Research, Teaching and Learning, Preservation, and Accessibility appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

ARL Public Policy Briefing (July/August 2026)

In July, the Library of Congress deputy CIO testified in a congressional hearing about efforts to continue treating machines as distinct users of its most popular websites. US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios testified in favor of legislation to regulate the use of unauthorized deepfakes; he reinforced the Trump administration’s position that “publicly available materials should be allowed for the training of models.” ARL is analyzing bills that would regulate chatbots available to minors with a focus on implications for libraries.

ARL continues to monitor the consolidated copyright cases against OpenAI. A judge approved the settlement agreement in Bartz v. Anthropic. A court in India held that OpenAI training its models on copyrighted works is fair dealing. ARL joined 26 other associations in an amicus brief in support of Harvard in its grant-funding litigation against the Trump administration.

The White House signaled its vision for a shift in the traditional role of research libraries in federally funded research through a joint OSTP/Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo and an OSTP report. The Senate included language blocking OMB’s proposed overhaul of the Uniform Guidance in its stopgap spending proposal.

CARL and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) affirmed their shared commitments to open science in a joint statement.

Read on for more details!

If you have questions or suggestions, please contact Katherine Klosek at kklosek@arl.org.

The post July/August 2026 appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.

The ARL Daily Intelligence is the trusted source of news and analysis for library leaders and advocates.

Released Monday through Thursday, the ARL Daily Intelligence is curated by Gary D. Price, co-founder and editor of Library Journal’s infoDOCKET, and edited and produced by Kaylyn Groves, ARL’s director of Member Communications.

You may subscribe to the email of ARL Daily Intelligence and the ARL Weekly News Roundup, released on Fridays. Both the ARL Daily Intelligence and ARL Weekly News Roundup are available on LinkedIn as well. Thank you for subscribing, reading, and sharing!

Do you work for an ARL member library and have news you want us to share in our Daily Intelligence and Weekly News Roundup? Please email your news link(s) to daily@arl.org.

Jump to:

• Monday, August 17
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
  • Scholars & Scholarship
• Tuesday, August 18
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
  • Higher Ed
• Wednesday, August 19
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries
• Thursday, August 20
  • Top o’ the Day
  • ARL Member Libraries

Monday, August 17

Top o’ the Day

AI Has Plunged the Book Publishing Industry into Utter Chaos
(WSJ: The Wall Street Journal via MSN)

Chatbots Have Entered the Classroom. What Happens Next?
(Columbia Magazine)

Most AI Use at Work Happens on Free Plans, Except in Science and Tech
(Epoch AI)

NSF Announces $1.5 Billion for Foundational Research to Drive Scientific Breakthroughs for American Technological Leadership
(NSF: US National Science Foundation)

ORI Generative Artificial Intelligence Guidance
(ORI: Office of Research Integrity, HHS: US Department of Health and Human Services)

Seeing Learning Differently: What Generative AI Reveals About Human Capability Development
(EDUCAUSE Review)

Survey Highlights Far-Reaching Contributions of International Students and Scholars
(Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration)

The AI Cheating Disaster That Forced Mexico’s Top University Back to Pen and Paper
(NPR: National Public Radio)
See also: AI Cheating, Leaked Papers and Marking Errors: How Exam Protests Went Global (The Guardian)

The Loneliness Crisis Comes to Campus
(The Atlantic)

US Justice Department Calls Three NSF Diversity Programs Unconstitutional
(Science)

ARL Member Libraries

Building a Faculty-Librarian Partnership in Instruction: Teaching Student-led Undergraduate Research in History
(University of Calgary Library via ACRL: Association of College and Research Libraries)
 ARL member library authors 

Exploring Academic Instructional Librarians’ Career Paths and Deference Behavior
(University of Pittsburgh Library System via The Journal of Academic Librarianship)
 ARL member library authors 

KU Librarian Races to Save Record of Ngäbe Voices, One Fragile Page at a Time
(KU Libraries, KU: The University of Kansas)

Mexican Ambassador Visits Benson Collection
(University of Texas Libraries)

Scott Mabry and Barbara Jackson Create Libraries Endowment to Support Librarians’ Professional Development
(NC State University Libraries)

University Libraries Launches New Self-Serve PDF Remediation Tool
(Penn State University Libraries)

UNLV Library Archives Preserve Blueprints and Sketches of Iconic Las Vegas Casinos (UNLV University Libraries, UNLV: University of Nevada, Las Vegas via News 3 LV)

Scholars & Scholarship

A Dataset of Article Processing Charges from 14 Scholarly Publishers, 2019–2025 (preprint)
(arXiv)

How Deep Do LLMs Internalize Scientific Literature and Citation Practices?
(Quantitative Science Studies)

Why AI Detection Fails for Academic Integrity (preprint)
(arXiv)

Tuesday, August 18

Top o’ the Day

AI Inference Is Getting Cheaper, but Your Agents Are Getting More Expensive
(Computerworld)

Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing
(404 Media)

Editorial: Agentic AI and Cybersecurity, the Story So Far
(Nature Machine Intelligence)

New LinkedIn Research Finds Women Account for Just 26% of AI Hires as AI Jobs Surge
(LinkedIn)

Opinion: Russia Burns Books and Sacks Libraries in Ukraine
(WSJ: The Wall Street Journal)

Understanding Federal Data Loss and Future Directions
(DRP: Data Rescue Project)

Upcoming Virtual Event: Making Space for Innovation in Research Libraries (Monday, September 21)
(RLUK: Research Libraries UK)

Video Playlist: IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2026
(IFLA: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions YouTube channel)
Highlights:

• Between Rejection and Extraction: GenAI, Copyright, and Access to Library Collections
• From Scraping to Strategy How Libraries Can Respond to Collection Crawling
• Libraries Under Attack and the Global Fight for Intellectual Freedom

We Still Don’t Know How People Are Really Using AI
(MIT Technology Review)

Your “For You” Algorithm Disagrees with You
(HAI: Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence)

ARL Member Libraries

AI Chatbots as Companions: Overview, Uses, and Considerations for Congress
(CRS: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress)

Alum Returns Library Book—Half a Century After He Borrowed It
(Cornell University Library)

Announcing Our Fall Workshop Series for New Academic Authors
(UC Berkeley Library via Authors Alliance)

Free Screening Celebrates UGA Libraries Restoration of Iconic Film About Athens Music Scene
(UGA Libraries, UGA: University of Georgia)

Impact of First-Year, One-Shot Library Instruction: A Scoping Review
(Southern Illinois University Carbondale Morris Library via The Journal of Academic Librarianship)
 ARL member library authors 

Maker Learning & Academic Health Sciences Libraries: A Scoping Review
(University of Illinois Chicago Library via Medical Reference Services Quarterly)
 ARL member library authors 

Higher Ed

AI Skills for College Graduates: Exploring How Instructors and Employers Prioritize AI Skills Differently
(Ithaka S+R)

Fall 2026 US Federal Higher Education Policy Outlook
(ACE: American Council on Education)

Warnock Leads Bipartisan Effort to Increase Federal Grant Access for HBCUs
(US Senators Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Katie Britt (R-AL))

Young Adults in the US Are Increasingly Wary of AI, Concerned It Will Take Jobs
(Pew Research Center)
See also: Teens in the AI Era: Schoolwork and Skills That Matter (Common Sense Media)

Wednesday, August 19

Top o’ the Day

AI Tool Lets Researchers “Vibe Code” in the Quantum Realm
(Nature)

ARL Public Policy Briefing (July/August 2026)
(ARL: Association of Research Libraries and CARL: Canadian Association of Research Libraries)

Call for Nominations to the 2027 NDSA Coordinating Committee
(NDSA: National Digital Stewardship Alliance)

Democracy Is Something Students Must Practice: Reflections from AASCU’s American Democracy Project
(AASCU: American Association of State Colleges and Universities)

Expanding Canadiana with Member Digitization Project
(CRKN: Canadian Research Knowledge Network)

IFLA North America Regional Newsletter (Spring 2026)
(IFLA: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions)

“Making American History Unavailable”: Genealogists Lament Plan to Move National Archives Facility from Chicago
(Daily Herald)

Public Trust and Government Trust Aren’t the Same for Higher Education
(University World News)

Transforming Legacy Card Catalogs with AI
(IFLA World Library and Information Congress Papers and Presentations)

US Department of Education Issues Proposed Rule to Overhaul and Improve America’s Higher Education Accreditation System
(US Department of Education)

What’s the Best Emoji? Antiquities Curators Have Thoughts.
(The New York Times ||| Archive.today version)

ARL Member Libraries

Aligning Education and Practice in Cataloging and Metadata Librarianship: Evidence from Job Descriptions and Professional Competencies (abstract only)
(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library via Technical Services Quarterly)
 ARL member library authors 

Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress: For the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2025
(Library of Congress)

Documenting an Organizational Milestone Through Oral Histories: UNT Libraries’ ARL Celebration
(UNT University Libraries, UNT: University of North Texas)

“Finding Their Names” Project Identifies Stories of 4,500 Enslaved Georgians
(UGA Libraries, UGA: University of Georgia)

Introducing APTrust Docs: A Single Home for APTrust Documentation
(APTrust: Academic Preservation Trust, University of Virginia Library)

McMaster University Libraries 2026 Impact Report Now Available
(McMaster University Libraries)

Patent and Trademark Resource Center at UT Libraries Now Open
(UT Libraries, UT: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

Teaching College Students How to Seek Missing Voices: Possible Roles for AI
(Penn State University Libraries via IFLA World Library and Information Congress Papers and Presentations)
 ARL member library authors 

The Descent into AI Dictation: A Framework for AI in the Organization of Information for Information Literacy Instruction
(University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries via The Journal of Academic Librarianship)
 ARL member library authors 

Thursday, August 20

Top o’ the Day

Beyond Access: Policy and Collaboration in Addressing Student Basic Needs Insecurity
(Ithaka S+R)

Canada’s AI Strategy Needs Educators Who Feel Prepared, Not Just Trained
(The Conversation)

Guest Post: AI Can Find the Article. Can It Tell Which Version It Used?
(The Scholarly Kitchen)

How Much of the Internet is Written with AI?
(Pew Research Center)

Open Heritage in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
(CC: Creative Commons)

OpenAI Wants to Monitor AI Abuse Without Forcing Customers to Hand Over Their Data
(Digital Trends)

ORFG 2025–2026 Annual Report
(ORFG: Open Research Funders Group)

Pentagon Orders Audit of 30 Universities’ Partnerships with Foreign Institutions
(AP: The Associated Press)

Reduced-Credit Bachelor’s Degrees in Ohio
(RAND)
See also: Work First, College Degree Later: Indiana Wants Students to Consider a New Postsecondary Model (Chalkbeat)

The Trust Marker Advantage: How Validated ORCID Data Correlates with Global University Performance
(ORCID)

Youth Power at the Polls: The Evolution of College Student Voting Rights (podcast)
(SpeechMatters Podcast, National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, University of California)
 

ARL Member Libraries

Amazon Buying Up Older Books, Destroying After Scanning. Back to 2024
(University of Virginia Library via Inc.)

ARL Unbound Column Features Interview with Kornelia Tancheva
(University of Pittsburgh Library System via ARL via LJ: Library Journal)

Dean Neame Reappointed for Second Term
(UW Libraries, UW: University of Washington)

Delivering Exciting Upgrades to Digital Collections Through Project DOR
(University of Michigan Library)

Hamill Foundation Multimedia Studio Relaunch
(University of Houston Libraries)

Institutional Data Initiative, Harvard Law School Library and Boston Public Library
 ARL member library authors 

• Institutional Books—Enriched Text: A Customizable Multilingual Open-Source Pipeline for Denoising, Deduplicating, and Annotating OCR Text at Scale (arXiv)
• Institutional Books—Visual Elements: An Open-Source Pipeline for Extracting, Classifying, Deduplicating, and Captioning Visual Elements from Digital Book Collections (arXiv)
• Institutional Newspapers Pipeline: Deriving Billions of High-Quality Tokens from Historical Newspapers (arXiv)

Moffitt Library Is Back—and Built for a New Generation of UC Berkeley Students
(UC Berkeley Library)

Stony Brook University Libraries Showcases AI-Powered Technologies for Incoming Students
(Stony Brook University Libraries)

Toward STEM Library Guides for Positive Social Change
(Michigan State University Libraries via The Journal of Academic Librarianship)
 ARL member library authors 

Curated by Gary D. Price, MLIS
Co-Founder and Editor, Library Journal’s infoDOCKET
Information Industry Analyst
Librarian

http://infoDOCKET.com
@infodocket

About the Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit membership organization of research libraries and archives in major public and private universities, federal government agencies, and large public institutions in Canada and the US. ARL champions research libraries and archives, develops visionary leaders, and shapes policy for the equitable advancement of knowledge.

The post ARL Daily Intelligence (August 17–20) appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.